Hermann Souchon

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Hermann Wilhelm Souchon (born January 2, 1895 in Bromberg ; † 1982 ) was a German officer and - according to the testimony of two accomplices - the murderer of Rosa Luxemburg .

Early career

Hermann, a nephew of Admiral Wilhelm Souchon , served as a lieutenant in Minden Field Artillery Regiment No. 58 during World War I and joined the Imperial Navy in 1915 , where he became a lieutenant at sea . He was released at the end of the war and then joined the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade , a free corps that operated in Berlin in January 1919, subordinated to the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division under Lieutenant General Heinrich von Hofmann .

Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg

On January 15, 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were discovered in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and were interrogated and severely abused by members of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division in their headquarters in the Eden Hotel under the orders of the First General Staff Officer, Captain Waldemar Pabst . When the two were then transported away, Souchon is said to have jumped on the car and killed Rosa Luxemburg, who had already been seriously injured by a blow with a rifle butt, by a pistol shot in the head by the hunter Otto Wilhelm Runge . For years the transport leader, first lieutenant a. D. Kurt Vogel , named as a shooter , who was also indicted in a trial before the field war court of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division and sentenced to imprisonment, but fled to Holland with the help of the later Admiral Canaris . Souchon was also summoned to court martial, but Judge-Martial Paul Jorns steered the process so that Souchon only had to appear as a witness, was not present at the trial of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and could therefore not be identified by other witnesses. In order to evade prosecution, Souchon fled to Finland in 1920 , where he worked as a banker.

Only two years after the trial against Vogel, Runge and others did the driver of the Luxembourg car, soldier Janschkow, testify in a new investigation that the “third man” was Hermann Souchon. Despite summons, Souchon did not appear for this trial.

After 1935

After Adolf Hitler granted amnesty and even indemnity to those involved in the Luxemburg and Liebknecht murders , Souchon returned to Germany in 1935, where he joined the Air Force and was promoted to colonel in World War II . After the war he lived in Crailsheim and Bad Godesberg, among others .

Post war knowledge

On December 1, 1959, Waldemar Pabst reported to Günther Nollau , who would later become President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , that it was Souchon who jumped on the car and shot Rosa Luxemburg. This was only on 14./15. January 1969, when the ARD broadcast a documentary report by Dieter Ertel , Contemporary history in court: The Liebknecht-Luxemburg case . Souchon went to court with lawyer Otto Kranzbühler , and in February 1970 the Stuttgart Regional Court , based on the field court files of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division from 1919, sentenced the Süddeutscher Rundfunk to revoke the allegation that Souchon was perpetrated.

Since the 1980s - after Souchon's death - the documentary report has been re-broadcast without objection by various stations and has been available on DVD since 2008. It is provided with an explanatory foreword by the editorial staff that it is a television game .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Thomas Fricke: Baden-Württemberg State Archives, State Archives Department Ludwigsburg - Finding aid EL 902/5: Spruchkammer 9 - Crailsheim: Case files - structural view. Retrieved July 16, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Südwest Presse Online-Dienst GmbH: headshot against the revolution: the free rider . In: swp.de . ( swp.de [accessed on July 16, 2017]).
  3. ↑ SWR Media Services: Contemporary History in Court: The Liebknecht-Luxemburg Case Part 1 ( Memento from August 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) SWR Media Services: Contemporary History in Court: The Liebknecht-Luxemburg Case Part 2 ( Memento from August 13, 2013 in Internet Archive )
  4. ^ The Liebknecht-Luxemburg case. A semi-documentation by Dieter Ertel and Gustav Strübel. TV game for German television from SDR / SWR.
personal data
SURNAME Souchon, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Souchon, Hermann Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and alleged murderer of Rosa Luxemburg
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH 1982